Correction of the First Mistake
by Mari2Anne
Summary: A slightly AU history where Clark confides in Chloe because he doesn't know what's wrong with him.  His parents have NOT told him yet how he came into their lives and he's tired of hiding what he can do.  From Clark's point of view during high school.


Although it's not a Christmassy story, this was written for a fellow awesome CHLARKer **SGuthrie27** for the 2011 Secret CHLARK Christmas gift exchange in the **Clark/Chloe Relationship Thread #5 **at Ksite.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday. Hope you enjoy reading...

**Correction of the First Mistake**

_**Author: Mari2Anne**_

**Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine; I do not own them or Smallville.  
>Pairing: ChloeClark  
>Status: Just a mushy AU romantic tale with a little bit of Clark angst thrown in.<br>Rating: PG/PG-13.**

a/n: I've always thought that Clark's first mistake in his relationship with Chloe was made on the day he met her when he let her get away with getting that kiss that he'd been thinking about all day "out of the way" so that they could be friends.

A slightly different/AU history where Clark confides in Chloe because he doesn't know what's wrong with him. His parents have _**NOT**_**told him yet how he came in to their lives and he's tired of them hiding what he can do. Pete is in the picture but for this tale, he does not learn about Clark's secrets.**

My timelines (er, ah what timelines?) are NOT canon (as in, the "Blank" incident happened much earlier—I know naught of continuity that is not of mine own making).

The story starts somewhere during Clark's high school years, from Clark's Point-Of-View as he's musing and, in typical SV-Clark fashion, moping about his life so far.

Spoilers: None really. Some out of order references to and/or scenes from the following episodes: "Pilot" and "Blank" and "Obscura." Oh, and have I ever mentioned that I never really liked the endlessly, ever-so-convenient amnesia 'excuses' used to explain away the un-explainable? Yeah, well, I've sort of … nope, not giving it away; you'll have to read on. But I'm not above changing things for my own 'story-convenience.' For example, I'm pretty much ignoring the Clark/Lex friendship. And just barely skimming over any Lana relationship. Hope it's all believable enough to make sense…

The thoughts that put this tale in motion: From "Blank" - the way he trusted Chloe & his belief in her theory that he was one of the meteor infected; and from "Pilot" - his anger when he found out he wasn't even human.

(I'm my own beta, so forgive any mistakes, please! But do let me know if anything does NOT sound correct…)

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Clark sat in his loft staring out at a world he didn't understand. His thoughts were making him crazy.

_He was a freak!_

His parents were always afraid **for** him, but often he felt they were more afraid **of**him, too. When he was younger he'd asked them countless times why he was so different. Other kids always called him weird or freak. He knew it wasn't because of all those "different" things he could do. As far as he was aware no-one else knew his many secrets. It was more because of the way he kept to himself and seemed to hide everything that made his behavior suspect and strange making him an easy target to be teased and picked on.

The answer his parents gave him was always the same: a variation of how he was their _special_ child who could do _special things_. Special things other kids couldn't do. Things other kids wouldn't understand and he'd have to try very hard not to show off those _special things_so kids wouldn't pick on him.

Sometime after the age of nine, whenever he had a choice, he'd stopped telling his parents about every new thing he could do; he only shared the ones that they'd witnessed. He was tired of their reaction. With each new ability came a new restriction, if not a dozen. Warnings about things he couldn't or shouldn't do.

No birthday parties!

No sports!

No activities that didn't include at least one of his parents.

He was surprised they actually let him go to school.

He loved school. School made him happy. He got to play with friends he seldom saw outside of school. Until school he'd been pretty much isolated at the farm, although he did get to accompany his parents on deliveries or shopping trips.

School was amazing.

By the time he'd reached school age, he'd learned not to talk in that strange language no-one understood. It used to make Martha laugh sweetly and hug him close to her, "Oh, my sweetheart, how I wish we could understand what you're saying."

And Jonathan would worry, especially when he started happily babbling on and on with the children of the customers they'd visit with deliveries from the farm. Jonathan would get a worried look in his eyes and try to explain, "I have no idea what cartoons Martha is letting him watch; he's got such a wild imagination."

By the time he was old enough for kindergarten, he understood and spoke the English language as well as any other five year old and his parents let him go to school, albeit quite reluctantly. Each day when he got home they'd listen eagerly to all the stories he had to tell about his day.

Sadly the stories were mostly about what all the other kids and the teacher did; he wasn't a big participator. The list of things he wasn't allowed to do had become overwhelming enough to make him too scared to do much of anything. He had become quite shy, sitting in his seat soaking it all up.

He remembered every detail in his retelling of each day's events. His parents realized he had some kind of total recall or photographic memory. They were awed in spite of their fear.

He soon learned to not be so detailed.

He was nothing if not a fast learner.

That was something he didn't share with his parents because he didn't know that it was unusual or different. He remembered **everything**he learned, EVERY WORD IN EVERY book. And he read a lot; every book that was put in front of him he devoured like it was a Christmas gift. He had mastered the alphabet within days after the start of kindergarten. He thought it was because his mom had practiced with him; at least that was what she'd told the teacher when he was praised for being so smart.

Martha seemed happy and hugged him a lot.

Jonathan worried.

They didn't know how to tell him to not be so smart but did try to explain that he shouldn't show off too much, to let the other kids answer the teacher's questions once in a while, so they wouldn't be jealous of him.

At that age he was still asking _Why?_

_Why am I different? Why can't I let my friends see what I can do?_But he never got a real answer. He was much too young to understand that his parents didn't know everything! In fact, he would have been shocked to learn that they knew absolutely nothing about him, except that he wasn't exactly from anywhere near Kansas!

He learned to skip questions on tests, not because he didn't know the answers, but it was the only way he could figure out how not to get a 100 percent on all of them. He felt marking the wrong answers would make him look stupid. He had learned quickly how mean and jealous kids became calling him teacher's pet because he was so smart. But deliberately being stupid didn't seem appealing to him and it didn't win friends either. 'Stupid' kids seemed to get picked on as much as the 'smart' kids. So he walked the fine line of the average world and sometimes wondered if any teachers puzzled over his test taking methods.

But in reality he didn't worry about the teachers so much, he wanted friends more than he wanted teachers' admiration.

So he kept his fast accumulation of knowledge to himself. He could read and comprehend so fast that by the end of second grade he'd read everything in the school library through the fifth grade level books. And then at the beginning of third grade his mom got him a card to the local library and there was no stopping his hunger for knowledge after that.

Books became his friends. And by the time he was a teenager, he'd started looking for others who could do things like he did. The fastest person alive. The strongest person alive. The smartest people with the highest IQ's. His search broadened once his parents got a computer. But no matter how wide his search no-one even came close to the things he could do. Nor could he find any language even remotely resembling the one he'd known as a child, a language he still remembered. In search of this language, he'd taught himself every language known on Earth, even the ancient ones. Just another huge secret he kept to himself. Another ability or 'power' that had no explanation.

However, over the years he had discovered that he didn't mind some of his powers too much. It did bother him in the beginning that he couldn't rough-house with his few friends because his strength could hurt them; and that he couldn't play sports because his parents feared he'd forget to slow down and throw the balls too high or too far and he'd get to third base too fast. So he quit playing except when he had to for physical education classes at school. And he suffered silently when he was called a _bookworm_.

When he was alone he ran as fast as he could whenever he could, jump so far and high sometimes it felt like he was flying. And he got his chores done so fast he always had extra time to read or to run. And more than once he'd saved people from getting hurt by being fast enough to get them out of harm's way. And always, _always_so fast that he wasn't even seen. He liked that feeling a lot. He felt good when he heard the stories about how someone was miraculously saved from an accident or some other incident. It did much to ease the sting of being called a freak, even if he was the only one who knew it.

It was the only secret he actually treasured, and when he was the most upset about being called names, he'd console himself with plans of one day letting them all know that it was his weirdness that was saving people.

One day…

Some day… they'd all want to be his friend.

He loved the freedom of racing through the fields so fast that the rest of the world stood still. He worked very hard at learning the limits of his "special skills."

Sometimes it both scared and overwhelmed him to discover that he couldn't measure the limits, he just got faster and stronger whenever he tested himself. But his dad had taught him well in learning how to control the skills, how to concentrate and focus until he understood exactly how to use the ability without hurting others or destroying property.

He had given up long ago trying to convince his parents that he could be trusted to not use his powers around others. They were just too scared that he would lose control. Which only taught him that the hardest lesson he had to force upon himself was controlling his anger against them and against a world that had done this to him. He was often conflicted about this anger and the unquestioning love he felt for his adoptive parents. Clark understood deep down in his soul that they loved him. Why else adopt him?

There was no financial gain in taking on a child that needed all this special attention. A lot of folks would have sent him back to the orphanage, especially after all the havoc he caused in their lives. He'd broken a lot of treasured collectables and even some furniture during his formative toddler years when they hadn't known how to teach him to control his strength and speed.

Martha _**never**_got a break! They couldn't even leave him alone with a babysitter for an occasional date night out together. But even knowing all these things he still felt they were just way out of control in the over-protectiveness. And some of the initial shocked and worried looks, especially from Jonathan, whenever a new ability surfaced, made Clark believe they were also very afraid of him. He tried to tell himself it was only surprise because they didn't seem to have a clue what was 'wrong' with him; why he was developing all these super-human 'talents.'

They'd told him years ago that he was adopted, but did not know anything about his birth parents and especially not why they'd had to give him up. He yearned to understand why and he ached to share what he could do.

He wanted to know why he couldn't get hurt. 'Invulnerable' was a word that his parents never even said aloud when he never bruised or bled or even cried out in pain from the countless 'normal' toddler falls.

He was four when he first wondered why other kids got hurt when they tried to beat him up. Something that happened at the first and only birthday party he'd been allowed to attend. Jonathan had let him go only because his mom, along with all the other moms, was there also. And because she'd witnessed the 'incident' and knew Clark had done nothing to the birthday boy, he didn't really get into trouble when they got home. Of course, the injured boy had a bruised hand that couldn't be explained away, so Clark did have to apologize. So for a very long time after that, he didn't really miss not being allowed to go to any other parties!

He never got sick. With the exception of when he played in an old deserted farm building where he got near green meteor rocks. He felt so hot, like his blood was on fire. He'd literally crawled out of that barn afraid he wouldn't live to get home again. But the pain disappeared almost instantly once he'd gotten a few feet past the barn door. He didn't even tell his parents. He did go back several times and searched through the barn until he'd discovered what was causing his pain. After that he stayed away from there and it would be several years before he would feel that pain again.

Lana! Another strange pain! Beautiful Lana. They'd been neighbors most of their lives and yet he'd never really spoken more than a few words to her. She was the Smallville princess thought by most to be fragile because she'd lost her parents during Smallville's infamous meteor shower when they were very young. Though he certainly didn't know her, Clark adored her, but then so did everyone else. He knew he wouldn't have stood a chance, especially since he often got strangely weak and nauseous when he was near her. Adding _clumsy_to his already bruised self-confidence certainly wasn't going to win him the most sought-after girl in the whole town.

So for the longest time he didn't even get close enough to her to feel the full effects of the poisonous little meteor rock she often wore on a chain around her neck. Therefor he didn't make the connection that this weakness had the same source as the blood-burning rocks from the barn. He just assumed that up until then, as far as he knew there were only two things that could hurt him. So to stay alive and safe, he just had to keep away from the rocks in the barn and from Lana.

Which wasn't really too difficult, especially after he had the honor of giving a new big-city girl her introductory tour of Smallville High School during the beginning of eighth grade. He had watched in amazement how her whole face seemed to smile after the principal introduced them and he first shook her hand and told her, "Hi. Welcome to Smallville High, Chloe!"

They appeared to be lost in another world for a moment until the principal gave Clark a polite nudge, "You might want to start the tour in the newspaper office, Clark. Miss Sullivan plans on becoming a journalist and hopes to get our _Torch_back to life and noticed outside of our small world."

Before the end of the school day, Clark was completely captured by Chloe's snarky attitude and determined to prove to her that Smallville wasn't as far behind the moon as she thought; although not having a readily-available copy of _The Daily Planet_did not help to promote his cause. After their last class, he was reluctant to say good-bye to her as they stood waiting for the bus and was extremely happy to oblige when she asked for a tour of his real-life farm.

He tried hard to concentrate on his explanations of how his parents ran the farm while she absorbed his every word and occasionally gazed at him as if she couldn't believe any of it was for real. He was completely shocked and pleasantly surprised when the tour ended in his loft in the barn and out of the blue she just kissed him.

When he was about to question why she'd done that, she said, "I know you've been thinking about that all day so I figured we'd get it out of the way and be friends…"

He'd blushed beet red, but he missed her touch the second she'd backed away and it gave him courage beyond embarrassment and he bent down and gave her a quick kiss back, "As long as it doesn't stay out of the way forever, I'll let it go for now."

She'd raised puzzled eyes up at him, but said nothing.

And so they'd become friends. Although he still kept his secrets, he opened up to Chloe in ways he'd never trusted any other friend, even Pete. The three of them were often inseparable and Clark sometimes even forgot for hours at a time that his life was a complete and total lie. The only thing that eased his conscience about it was that he wouldn't even know what truth to tell Chloe and Pete! He just tried to relax and enjoy what 'normal' time he could with them.

The lies he told when he couldn't explain any of his strange disappearances became more of evasive answers rather than direct lies. Until one day Chloe cornered him in the _Torch_office and demanded, "Why do you pretend you don't know answers on tests?"

"What do you mean?" he pretended ignorance as his heart pounded with the fear that she knew that he was a freak.

"The last few times in science class when the teacher had us correct each other's papers… Remember, I sit in front of you and I was the one that corrected your tests? Sound familiar? I was curious the first time when the only ones you got wrong were the ones you didn't answer. So, okay, you skip the ones you're not sure about; I get that. But today you skipped about three that you actually helped me remember during our little study session at _The Talon_the other night. Ring any bells, Kent? Fess up! Why are you trying to hide how smart you really are?"

He wanted to hit his head against the wall. How could he be so stupid? He'd become lax in his test taking and hadn't even read the seven questions he'd decided to skip at the beginning of the test. He'd just figured seven out of sixty questions wasn't a bad number to miss! He suddenly became tired. Things were getting too complicated. But as he looked at her impatiently waiting for an answer, he knew he wasn't ready to tell her everything yet, but he didn't want to lose her friendship so he decided to tell her a partial truth.

Before he could open his mouth, she interrupted, "Don't think so hard, Clark. I don't want another one of your patent little excuses. Just spit out the truth! Just once!"

So he did. "Being too smart doesn't win you any friends. Especially if the teacher is impressed! I got tired of being picked on at a very young age. It became a habit… sort of hard to break…"

He looked at her hopefully. Hoping she wouldn't be angry. Or call him some kind of cruel idiot, especially because he always pretended he needed the study sessions as much as the others did.

She studied him carefully for several minutes and finally asked, "Just how smart are you?"

"It's not so much that I'm smart. I sort of remember everything that I read…" he stammered.

She let out a loud whistle! "Wow, I wasn't expecting that. I thought for sure you were going to tell me you cheat because every question you do answer is always correct. Must be tough being you, huh?"

"I somehow convinced myself that marking wrong answers would be cheating! So I just randomly choose a few of the hardest questions not to answer. Today, I messed up and picked the questions without reading them first. I'm sorry I've been keeping that a secret."

"Hey, we all have things we don't tell anyone. I'm sorry I got a little self-righteous for a minute. Don't worry about it and forget I asked, okay?"

If he hadn't already been completely in love with her by then, her instant understanding and acceptance would certainly have tipped the scale in that direction.

He wondered for weeks afterwards if she would so readily accept all his other secret talents if he ever decided to tell her about them.

Some months later he got what he believed to be an answer to that question when Pete talked her into showing Clark her 'Wall of Weird.' He was devastated. "Why didn't you ever tell me about this?" he demanded of her.

"Hey, we all have secrets!" She replied accusingly as if she knew each and every one of his secrets. He suddenly knew real fear! Every strange thing that had ever happened in Smallville seemed to be on that wall. Everything that was thought to be caused by someone who was supposedly somehow infected by the meteor rocks that had been scattered throughout the county during the meteor shower when they were just kids. He skimmed the wall quickly fully expecting to read about himself. Maybe she even knew that the meteor rocks could hurt him.

Maybe his parents had always been right in warning him about trusting people with all the things he could do. And maybe they were right to be afraid of him also. It looked like every meteor-infected person eventually turned violent or evil. He'd never made that one single conclusion even though he'd been responsible for stopping a number of them from hurting other people. Most of them ended up in some kind of institution if not prison. He could almost hear the cell doors slamming shut as they locked him away in the deepest dungeon at Metropolis' infamous insane asylum.

He needed air; he had to get out of there… and almost forgot to run at a normal pace he was so upset. For several days he'd avoided her. She'd finally come to his loft the following weekend and told him she was sorry she hadn't shared her wall with him.

He couldn't seem to stem the pouting as he told her, "Well, I'm weird too, you know. Maybe the meteor rocks are responsible for my fancy retention skills! They're not my fault! Are you going to put me on that board, too?"

Her knees had given out. He'd caught her before she fell and helped her to sit down on the couch. Her face had lost all its color as she softly whispered, "God, I'm sorry, Clark. I never thought of it like that. I get carried away sometimes when I'm just looking at the story angle. I will take it down, I swear. And I will never tell anyone about your awesome memory, Clark. Please believe me. I don't want to lose you as my friend."

Her eyes were swimming in tears as she looked straight into his eyes hoping he would forgive her. He pulled her close to his side, so relieved he could barely talk, "We're a lot more than just friends, Chloe. And I'm sorry I forgot for a few days that I could trust you."

She smiled through her tears and answered, "I hope someday you'll know that you can trust me with anything…"

He didn't understand that cryptic statement at the time but over the days and weeks that passed, he noticed she never questioned him anymore when he mysteriously disappeared. And even though she was quite clever in her actions, he had the distinct feeling she covered for him many times at school and with their friends. Whenever he did try to question her, she proved to be quite as talented as he in evasive tactics.

Their friendship grew stronger with each passing day, they grew closer as they worked together to help solve many of Smallville's mysteries. He felt confident enough to eventually ask her to be his date to a school dance and was elated when she said yes. He even got up the courage to kiss her while they were on the dance floor. But at the last second when he could almost taste her lips, Fate intervened. The loudspeakers screeched over the sound of the band as a tornado warning was announced and they were told to remain in the gym.

He disappeared without warning or apology because he knew Lana was most likely right in the path of the tornado because she'd driven her current boyfriend to the bus station. Unfortunately, rescuing Lana wasn't the only save he ended up helping with that night. By the time it was over, no apology could make up for the way he'd left Chloe at the dance. And the next days were spent helping neighbors recover from the tornado's destruction and finding his father who had also been trapped by the storm.

When finally they did have a moment to talk while searching for his father, she didn't even let him finish his apology. He was out helping people. She understood that. And maybe they should just remain friends because anything more could become too complicated.

He was too worried about his father and too shocked to argue with her, or to tell her that 'complicated' was fine with him as long as it was with her. And as he thought about it, and moped about it for days, he convinced himself that maybe she did know more of his secrets than he suspected and being his girlfriend was more than she could handle. He'd rather be just her friend than lose her completely.

It took a while but eventually they slipped back into the ease of their friendship and were once again comfortable with each other.

Until the other day when his memory was wiped completely by a young man who'd been experimented on with liquefied meteor rocks at a Summerholt facility in Metropolis. The young man's father had been trying to erase some bad memories from his son's mind. In trying to escape the institute and his father, he had robbed the _Talon_cash register and when Clark tried to stop him, he'd used his 'meteor' power to wipe Clark's memory.

It was Chloe who'd come to his rescue and over the next day, while his parents were in Metropolis for his father's heart check-up, had stayed close to Clark to try to help him regain his memory. She'd shown him where he lived, who he was and as he accidentally started using some of his abilities, she convinced him to not tell the world. She explained to him her theory that his powers came from a meteor shower that hit Smallville years ago. Lots of people had been infected and had shown various powers over the years.

He immediately assumed he was a freak or a mutant. She made him realize it wasn't a bad thing because he used his meteor skills to secretly save people, including herself on more than one occasion. As he concluded that she was the kind of friend who would never betray him, he was rather surprised to learn he hadn't trusted her with his secrets; she'd discovered most of them on her own.

The next day as he once again saved her; this time from getting her memories erased at that Summerholt institute, his memories were restored as he blocked the rays that were aimed at Chloe's brain.

When his parents returned from Metropolis later that night, he had barely said hello and only half listened to their answer to how the heart exam went, before once again confronting them with questions he hadn't asked in years, "What's wrong with me? Why do I have all these strange powers? Why are you hiding me here?" And a question he'd never asked before: "Am I a meteor freak?"

He quickly saw how much it upset his Dad who'd just returned from a fairly normal heart check-up, so he just muttered, "Never mind… I don't want to hear any more lies!"

He'd stormed out of the house at near lightning speed and had ended up collapsing in the storm cellar on top of a large covered object that his Dad had always said was just an old farm machine that didn't work anymore. It hadn't felt like any farm equipment Clark had ever come in contact with under that tarp when he'd landed on it. He pulled the tarp off and fell backwards in shock and fear!

Suddenly his world shifted off its axis in ways that made so much sense and yet confused him more than he had ever been in his life.

He stood up slowly and finally dared to touch what could only be a space ship of some kind. A very small space ship.

Just big enough maybe to carry one small child. Some vague memories tried to surface from some deep sub-conscious he'd buried years ago because they hadn't made sense at the time. A voice in that strange language. But it wouldn't come completely to the surface so he stopped trying to remember. His brain felt like it was starting to explode with every possible scenario he was trying to cope with.

He was some kind of space creature. An alien.

Were Martha and Jonathan Kent aliens also? No, that didn't make sense, maybe just for the very reason they had been in Metropolis. They went to doctors. Clark never could because needles could not penetrate his invulnerable skin. X-rays probably wouldn't see through that skin either. There would have been too many questions. And now, he knew why the Kents feared letting his secrets be known. He wouldn't have been locked up in an insane asylum. He'd have become someone's lab rat.

He couldn't control the sudden shaking as he sat back on the cellar ground and studied the ship. His ship. His _space_ship. He repeated it again and again. It was tough to comprehend. Why hadn't they told him? What were they afraid of? Why hadn't he known? How could he have forgotten being in that space ship? Was the voice he barely could remember someone from his planet? Was it his father? Why had they sent him here? And from where had he been sent? Where was his home planet? Was he the only one sent here?

How could he not sense that he wasn't… He wasn't human! Lies! Everything was a lie!

He spent the whole night out there, at first driving himself crazy with questions for hours. And when none of his answers made sense to him, he began to plan on how to cope.

Who could he turn to? Who could help him? Help him figure out where he came from? Who he was; _what_he was? Did the Kents not know? Was that why they never told him?

By the early dawn he'd decided to tell Chloe. Maybe it was an unfair burden to bring to her. But he had no-one else he trusted. The first smile of the night came to him as he remembered how she had known about his powers all along and had never said a word to him or anyone else, waiting for him to trust her enough to tell her himself. How long had she known?

He was a fool. He should never have let her convince him to just remain friends after that dance. He should have kissed her senseless. He should have done it yesterday too, after his memories had been restored, instead of letting her and everyone else believe he couldn't remember anything.

Now he might never again get the chance to kiss her. Especially not after he told her he wasn't even a member of her species. She hadn't been afraid to let a meteor-freak take her to a dance and kiss her… but an alien; well that was literally a whole other world.

But who else could he turn to? If she rejected him or turned him in to some government science geek squad, he'd accept it. He was strong enough to beat them. As far as he knew he had only one weakness, the meteor rocks; no-one else knew that secret and he had no immediate plans to share it either.

He'd walked into the _Torch_this morning and smiled as he saw Chloe typing away, probably working on what should be a Pulitzer-prize winning article and as she turned to look up at him, he asked in a voice that revealed nothing of the long, sleepless, life-changing night he'd survived, "Are you Chloe?"

For a whole second she wasn't sure if he was kidding, but he couldn't hold back the grin and she chastised, "That's funny! Not hilarious, but it's funny!"

He laughed, "My parents told me that you Clark-sat and called them home from Metropolis. I want to say thanks."

She stood up and came a step closer to him, "Well, you could still use some help with your comedy routine but it's not like I taught you to eat solid foods again."

"Still…"

"You're welcome!"

Reluctantly, he fished for some answers he wasn't sure she would give him, and he felt a sharp twinge of guilt, but reeled out the bait anyway; he had to know. "So it must have been kind of strange to have a zombie best friend walking around…?"

"Yeah, I mean, you know, I never really realized how complicated that zombie's life was."

"Complicated."

She wasn't going to tell him! That dawned on him right away! But he had to continue on the path he'd carved out for himself, even though he wasn't really sure if he wanted her to tell him. "Did I do something unusual?"

She got real close and searched his face before slowly telling him, "You had a clean slate to start all over with. And you made all the same choices… except for one."

He didn't understand the demon that drove him to push her further, "Chloe I need you to be completely honest with me."

The smirk was almost his undoing, "Honest, huh?"

He visibly gulped and hoped she wouldn't hate him, "What'd I do?"

Her eyes opened wider and a soft smile crossed her lips as she told him, "You trusted me."

He felt strangely dizzy… almost as bad as when he'd uncovered the space ship. His conscience caught up with him in one gut-wrenching, soul-searching wave that was literally knocking him off his feet. As she turned and walked away from him, back towards her desk, he pulled up a chair and sat down.

As she sat down in her own chair, she was surprised to see he hadn't left and raised questioning eyes at him.

Quietly he told her, "More than you know."

She suspected something from his ominous tone, "You didn't forget what happened while you had amnesia, did you?"

"No, I'm sorry, Chloe, for not being honest. It was a lot to absorb; finding out you knew all of my secrets…"

When she said nothing he continued, "Do you trust me, Chloe? That I would never hurt you? That I would rather die?"

"You're scaring me, Clark. What's wrong?"

"Maybe nothing. Maybe everything will make sense. Well, not make sense; I still don't believe it… or understand it…"

"Clark! Clark! English, please! You're babbling!"

"Yeah, that's another thing…" he muttered as her request brought back another memory, "A language I thought I'd forgotten… must be from my… my birth parents. I was about three years, Earth years old when the Kents adopted me. So I must have learned that strange language during my first three years… I wish I could remember… remember them… "

"CLARK! FOCUS! What are you talking about?"

He realized he was probably proving that he was certifiably crazy from the worried look she was giving him; so with great effort he stopped his dizzying thoughts and focused on her eyes and repeated something he'd told her the day before. "I want to show you something because I do trust you; and after yesterday, I know that I always could; that you'd never betray me, that you never have..."

"You're my best friend Clark. I love you. I always have. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I knew about your powers. Well, until yesterday, I thought you only had a couple… like super speed and amazing strength. And of course, your total recall. The enhanced hearing, X-ray vision and that fire from the eyes… those were a complete surprise. Amazing, though, I've got to tell you!"

"I'm not a meteor freak, Chloe," he said slowly, "Although I didn't find that out until yesterday."

He got up and walked towards her, reached for her hands and helped her stand up, "And I've loved you from the day I met you."

He bent down and kissed her with all the hunger and need that filled his heart. A very troubled heart that was at the same time begging for forgiveness for letting her fall in love with him before he'd told her the truth about himself.

He finally pulled back smiling at her somewhat bewildered look, "So, if you're not a meteor infected person, how do you have all these powers? Were you born with them?"

He laughed loudly at her sudden politically correct description of meteor freaks. She certainly knew how to make him happy. "I don't know if I was born with them, or if something or someone caused them. But I have to show you something before I tell you anymore. It might make it easier to understand… well, at least easier to explain. Care to ditch school for a couple of hours and come with me? It'll only take a minute to get to the farm."

"Take me away!" she smiled back at him as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

"Hold on tight…" he whispered as he pulled her closer and whisked her out of the building, through the fields and coming to a sudden stop in front of the storm cellar on his farm.

Before he unchained and lifted the door, he told her, "If any of this freaks you out or scares you, Chloe, you just have to tell me and I'll take you back to school. Okay?"

"I won't be scared of anything as long as you're with me, Clark," she reassured him.

For a very long moment all he could think about was whisking her away from there to somewhere private and far away. Someplace where he didn't have to tell her anything; where he didn't have to chance losing her. Someplace where he just had to worry about her uninhibited response to his kisses. He settled for just one last quick kiss and opened the cellar door.

She followed him down the few steps holding his hand the whole time. He pulled a string hanging from the ceiling and the cold darkness was filled with light. He glanced around with a worried look and finally pushed over some large sacks of potatoes, "Maybe you'd better sit down; sorry I don't have a better chair."

He walked backwards to the corner of the cellar and watching her quite nervously, pulled the tarp off the ship.

Her eyes grew large as they darted back and forth from the small ship to Clark and back again several times before she finally found her voice, "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yes," was all he answered, quietly.

"And it's real?"

Again, one word only, "Yes."

"Yours?"

"I believe so…"

"Ah, you can utter more than one word! Good! Progress! Do you know where it came from? Where you came from?"

"No!"

"So, you just found this yesterday?"

"Yes! I was angry… at my… at the Kents last night and ran out. I ended up in here and sort of fell on top of this. Jonathan had always said it was just old farm equipment. It didn't feel like farm equipment so I uncovered it…"

She stood up and walked over to him, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him softly on the lips, "Welcome to Earth, Space Man!"

He kissed her back, desperately, as if his life depended on it.

"You're not freaked out? Because let me tell you, I was!"

"Why would I be freaked out? I think you're amazing, Clark! I told you yesterday, you're a hero. You've saved so many people. And you never take any credit for it. I guess I've sometimes thought you couldn't be just a meteor freak. Everyone that we've encountered has had only one power. You only had two that I knew about at the time, but it WAS still twice as many as anyone else had. There just had to be more to you."

He couldn't believe how relieved he felt. "You're the amazing one, Chloe! And the bravest person I've ever met."

She stepped back out of his embrace for a moment and looked him up and down and muttered, "You look so… "

"So normal?" he guessed.

"I was going to say 'human' – but 'normal' works. Are you completely normal?"

She'd turned totally red-faced when it took him a minute to catch on and somewhat flustered, not sure if he should be insulted, asked, "Do you want proof? Should I take my clothes off?"

She shrieked, "NO… I'm sorry! I believe you…"

"No, I'm sorry," he said thoughtfully. "I've had a lot of nightmares wondering what I am; if this … this body is just a disguise and someday I'd morph into something else. Something that looked more like a creature that should have all these powers. So, don't feel bad; it was a legitimate question and deserves an answer. Especially because you kissed me. I don't know if you can understand how much that meant to me right now. How much I love you. How much I won't be upset if you can't handle this, or don't want this relationship to continue. I would completely understand. And, yes, I'm 'normal' from head to toe."

He smiled at her as her face slowly returned to a much lighter shade and she announced happily, "My boyfriend's an alien. It's amazing and unbelievable. You don't mind if I repeat it a few times do you, let it sink in, you know?"

"As long as you keep that 'boyfriend' part in you can say it a million times; I won't get tired of hearing it!"

She grinned, "You're too easy, Clark!"

And then she came closer to touch the ship, "Does it open?"

"I haven't figured out how yet…"

"Neither have we… in all the years it's been here, all the years you've been here, with us…"

Chloe and Clark both turned in surprise as Jonathan's voice entered the cellar a second before they saw him. Clark had forgotten to pull down the door and neither of them had heard anyone approaching. Martha came down the steps right behind him.

Clark stepped in front of Chloe as if to protect her and directed a burning question towards Jonathan. "Why did you never tell me the truth?"

"We don't know the truth, Clark. And we were never sure how to tell you what we did know. At least not in any way that wouldn't scare you away. We always hoped someday we'd understand enough to explain it when you were old enough. We always hoped there'd be more time. Deep in our hearts we feared that eventually you wouldn't settle for the way we avoided answering all your questions. We didn't and still don't know where you came from or why. We're not even sure how. That ship didn't seem powerful enough to come all the way from some other galaxy, which is where scientists have said the meteors came from."

He took a deep breath and sat down on the sacks of potatoes Chloe had vacated and Martha stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders, reassuring him. "But that's the only way you could have gotten here. You arrived the day of the meteor shower. We'd gotten into an accident trying to avoid the crashing meteors. You'd wandered over to our overturned truck. And as we walked around trying to determine if your family was somewhere around, we found the ship. The only things we knew for sure were that you certainly didn't come from anywhere near Kansas and we couldn't hand you over to any authorities. We always thought someday, your family would come looking for you. And in the meantime we'd take care of you, keep you safe. It only took a few days before we realized how special you were. You were impossibly fast and you enjoyed being chased, and you never cried or got hurt during the hard tumbles you took running so fast."

Both he and Martha smiled as if recalling the rowdy young toddler racing around their home. "After a couple of months during which we'd watched every news station and read every newspaper looking for missing children notices, we started to believe that no-one was coming for you and we started looking into adopting you. We'd already lost our hearts to you and we couldn't give you away into some unknown foster care system. This farm was isolated enough; we figured you'd be safest here. The day we finally got the official adoption papers filed we swore to you that we would dedicate our lives to giving you the best home we could, to keep you safe, and to love you as much as your own family loved you."

When Clark didn't respond right away, Martha stepped close to him, "Clark, the hardest truth we never found the heart to tell you is that we might never know why you're here or where you've come from. We could only imagine that there had to be an excellent reason for your people to send you so far away because from the looks of the ship, someone put a lot of love into making sure you'd arrive here safely. It probably broke their hearts to have to send you so far away. I know it would have broken ours if we'd had to give you up."

"Were you afraid of me when I started showing all those abilities?" Clark finally asked carefully as if it were the only thing that really mattered to him.

Martha tried to answer in a way that would convince him they'd only ever loved him, "Clark, if we were afraid of you, we'd never have dared to go to sleep. With all the things you could do, you could easily have killed us in our sleep. You were always very lovable, from the very first day. I can only surmise that's because you had very loving parents, or people who raised you those first few months or years. We trusted in the love you gave us, Clark. I know you've never been comfortable with how over-protective we've been, but you must understand we didn't know any other way to keep you safe. Please don't hate us for the mistakes we made, Clark."

Clark wrapped his arms around Martha as she let her tears fall, "I don't hate you, Mom and Dad. And I do understand now why you had to be so careful. You risked a lot, even your own safety, just by taking me in. Thank you for the good things you've said about the people who sent me here. Maybe one day I'll figure out a way to get the ship open and hopefully it will answer all the questions I have. But if not, I won't worry about it anymore, because I have all the love I need right here, with you and Dad. And Chloe."

He turned slightly to pull Chloe into his arms also as Jonathan stood up and joined in on the group hug.

Later that morning after Clark and Chloe snuck back into school, he sat behind her in science class and was thinking how in less than two days his life had gone from being a complete lie to becoming a perfect world filled with enough love to make him feel he could survive anything. At that moment Chloe turned around as if she sensed he was thinking about her and smiled at him. As he smiled back, his only thought was, "Yes, so much more than enough love…."

_…the end… or is it the beginning…?_

Hope you liked…?


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